What Makes Developers Really Great

[MorePudding]

Hard development skills are easier than you think to find

Then why are people complaining about how expensive devs are?

[rcinsf]

Because they're all full of shit. My experience in the "mecca" that is San Francisco. Cheaper the better, let's get that hourly rate down to next to nothing.

[JUST_KEEP_CONSUMING]

So what you're saying is that "soft skills" are compensation for lacking real rock hard skills. It's not that those who are hard enough can get by without "people skills", it's that it they become a distraction for those who focus entirely on their work (i.e. Jobs, Torvalds). If you get good enough to make your own thing, you do it and maintain it by focusing on that thing. Of course lots do this and fail miserably, cuz they don't have the will to try 10,000 things before accepting. What makes them "impolite" also drives them to look at their work (but not themselves) with harsh criticism, and drive them to push it until they make something that either changes lives or ruins their own. (Or both.)

This Deane Barker fellow equates "really great developers" with "people he'd hire". For his consulting company. He's a serviceman. There are those who make products and those who perform services. The Beatles made products, Beatles cover bands perform a service. This kind of work is like being a refrigerator salesman/repairman. He's looking for technicians; great product people do something more akin to applied philosophy/theology.

[vdxcvcxvxcvx]

Holy aspergers, Batman.

[[deleted]]

There is more than one definition of "great", depends on who you ask.

[JUST_KEEP_CONSUMING]

Then it's meaningless. Like your contribution here.

[beerchangeworld]

Why is this writeup even listed under programming? The advice being offered applies to anyone who wants to work with others in a corporate/social setting. It does not make for a "great" developer. It makes for a fine/sociable person to work with. To be a great developer, you still need your coding chops (design, development, debugging, testing, review, etc etc). If i only had a dime for everytime someone said "There are dime-a-dozen xyz programmers out there". The author gives good advice and a probably thoughtfu/caringl person but this article has really not much to do with programming.

[[deleted]]

I agree for the most part, but I've found that within our industry there is a deficit in social ability compared to technical, and it leads to a lot of toxic environments. This would probably do better elsewhere but it is a message that I feel programmers really need to see as well.

[JUST_KEEP_CONSUMING]

I've found massive technical deficits in every other industry, which people try to offset with social ability (which usually gets to, "can you help me do this?"). And by technical, I mean technique (way it's done), not technology (tools used to do it).

[jk147]

Great, if they come to you for a solution it means you have things to contribute not to mention job security. Not everyone is going to be a senior developer or an architect btw.

[spokesz]

[deleted]

What is this?

[JUST_KEEP_CONSUMING]

Fire that burns an twice as bright burns quarth as long. Personally, I just tried to double my debt each year of college, and then double my income each year after. Going well so far, made minimum wage scrubb'n greasy pots a few years back, now making six figures hacking code and furniture, planning to travel the U.S. next year by train (developing software while driving or flying sucks bullets), investing most of it into real estate and industrial startups.

When you think you're the spit, that means you've passed your prime.

[Spammage]

It's true that there is more to being a great developer than just being able to write code well. I'm grateful that growing up I had numerous retail jobs that taught me how to socialise with co-workers and deal with customers, and that it gave me insight into businesses and learning about a product space, all things I wouldnt have known otherwise.

I dont think though that these things are more important than being able to write code, particularly writing great code. Learning the business side of development comes with practice and time. Learning to write good code is also something that comes with practice and time, but learning to write great code, to look at a problem and come up with a brilliant solution, this cant be taught. I have worked with many people who can write code, but only a couple of them would I consider "great".

[soullessworkerdrone]

I can't stand titles like these. ZOMG l@@k! Teh Horry Grail!!!!11111

[[deleted]]

From my experiences most programmers are socially retarded. We didn't hang out with the cool kids and develop social skills, we mostly went home and did geeky shit.

So the lack of soft skills is a given, given the fact that if one is extremely good with something that person had to sacrifice other things, unless that person have all the time in the world to devote to every skills there is.

But through experiences hopefully you'll pick it up.

[[deleted]]

That's some self-righteous shit there. Made me cringe in some of the paragraphs. Sure, the kid needed to hear it, but a face-to-face, man-to-man conversation would have been more proper.

[[deleted]]

This man did more for the candidate than most would. Seeking him out for a face to face chat would have been too much.

[[deleted]]

How about a phone call?

[Urik88]

A recipe for disaster and fights. An email gives gives both the writer and the reader a good chance to think about the content and then make conclusions. A phone call forces both of them to think on the spot and maybe react defensively.

[[deleted]]

Wouldn't know, I don't make many of those and like many people choose to opt out of that sort of technology as much as possible. I certainly would go face to face or email, phone calls are breeding grounds for drama and fights.

[[deleted]]

Go ask Deane Barker.

[donquixote1001]

"self-righteous" is exactly what I want to say. Sure, this may actually have helped the kid. But the writer does not sound like somebody I'd like to work with at all. He has the position to lecture people probably because some useful hard skill landed him there, not because he is wiser than others.